Karin Lowachee
Karin Lowachee's family moved from Guyana, South America to near Toronto, Ontario when she was about 2 years old.
After university, she tried various jobs unrelated to writing, before
being rejected from the graduate writing program at the University of British Columbia.
Offered the chance, she went to Rankin Inlet on the west coast of Hudson Bay where she spent 9 months.
Her novel, Warchild, won the Warner Aspect First Novel Contest.

Ontario writer Karin Lowachee won the Warner Aspect First Novel Contest for Warchild, and it's easy to see why. This is
an intense coming-of-age story with strong characters, lots of action, and a great deal of underlying thought about the nature of
loyalty in a complex and deeply flawed society.

Jos Musey is only eight years old when his world implodes around him. Pirates attack the merchant ship Mukidori, killing his family
and taking the children to sell as slaves. Jos's good looks attract the abusive attention of the pirate captain, Falcone, who takes
Jos as his personal slave. A year later, Jos seizes his first chance to escape, only to flee into the clutches of enemy
aliens -- the striviirc-na, who are at war with EarthHub.

Jos is afraid of the striviirc-na because they're evil enemies... or are they? As he grows familiar with the aliens and their
culture, Jos discovers that nothing about the war is straightforward and nobody is what they seem, including him. By the age of
fourteen when he signs onto a Hub warship, his loyalties are hopelessly conflicted, but he does know one thing. He hates the pirate,
Falcone, and he wants revenge at any cost.

Since I don't generally read war stories, I won't try to comment on the military aspects of this book, except that they all seemed
reasonably credible to an inexpert reader such as me. Certainly, I liked the scenario itself -- an aggressive empire dragged by
economics and posturing into a costly conflict whose only real beneficiaries are the pirates who prey on both sides. I was not enthused
by the alien society which seemed derivative of Japan, and I found Jos a little too capable to be convincing as a fourteen year old,
but these niggles did not distract me from the suspenseful story.

Donna McMahon discovered science fiction in high school and fandom in
1977, and never recovered. Dance of Knives, her first novel, was published by Tor in May,
2001, and her book reviews won an Aurora Award the
same month. She likes to review books first as a reader (Was this a
Good Read? Did I get my money's worth?) and second as a writer (What
makes this book succeed/fail as a genre novel?). You can visit her
website at http://www.donna-mcmahon.com/.